And So The Pendulum Swings

Not too long ago, I was talking to a friend of mine, Steve Mathis, who happens to work as a therapist and school counselor. In our conversation, I posed the question if it was better to process or compartmentalize life experiences? I followed that question with the declaration that I seem much better at compartmentalizing life events and felt more comfortable doing that over-processing. After a smile and slight chuckle, he replied, “I get that. But you know, growth and comfort are most often at opposite ends of the spectrum”. Yes, I thought, personal growth comes from a growth mindset. However, developing a growth mindset can be a daunting task, to say the least.

Psychologists often refer to two types of mindsets that determine how a person will view, experience, and live their life. A fixed mindset holds the belief that we are who we are going to be from birth and our intelligence, adaptability, and abilities are pretty much unchangeable over our lifetime. A growth mindset, on the other hand, is the exact opposite. A growth mindset is the belief that we can improve our lives through the cultivation of skills and that your ultimate potential is unknown until you decide to define it. It is a focused path to becoming a product of your life experiences, rather than a victim of them. The major obstacle to developing a growth mindset resides in that space between comfort and growth that my friend, Steve, was referring to. Unfortunately, our brains can often seem hardwired for deficit thinking, making it much easier to accept our current life situations and self-talk ourselves into accepting life to be whatever it is at that moment. Refocusing and reframing our thinking, allows us to achieve a growth mindset. A growth mindset allows us to reach our self-determined potential and takes us far beyond our comfort zone and into the unlimited potential of the unknown. Fear of the unknown can keep us frozen in a fixed mindset. To begin the development of your growth mindset and acquire the skills needed to foster that change follow me at www.MotivatingExcellence.com/Blog. Please join the conversation by liking, sharing, and commenting on this post and on my blogsite. I look forward to following this journey with you!

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